


Written In Stone

by Bhelryss



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, People who should have died may live, Zuko is an Earthbender, this is a redux of a ff.net original, zuko as lee has a family and they're all ocs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-03-19 12:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3610638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agni was blind, when two of his most needed help. When blood called for aid, any aid at all, Guanyin answered. </p><p>earthbender!Zuko</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drabble:
> 
> A moonless night is a night in which Agni is ignorant of the world, deprived even of the reflections gifted through Tui's benevolence. On such a night Ozai's son was born, as court astrologers decried the stars' alignment as a sign of early death and poor bending.
> 
> Prince Lu Ten prayed to all the great spirits with his father at a lonely shrine in the garden that night, when Ursa and child teetered on the edge of death and life, for a miracle. 
> 
> Agni was blind to the world, and one of his was in need; Guanyin has always been merciful.

Prince Ozai’s wife went into labor as the setting sun turned the sky orange. The prince himself let the midwives and the servants cater to his wife, as the birthing dragged on. Time flowed onwards, and the sky darkened, and the stars wheeled up from the horizon. The moon itself never rose, and the more superstitious of the court whispered of poor omens.

If even Tui had darkened his face to the unborn child of Prince Ozai...well, none would say it aloud. But they all knew that the child would be of poor luck and unskilled with its bending. If the child even had enough of the spirit’s blessing to touch its element, which was never a given.

Lady Ursa’s screams echoed throughout her quarters, and even into the nearest gardens. Every so often an attendant would leave the birthing room, their clothes singed. One attendant approached the gathered family of the Lady, contrite unease plain to see. “It is a difficult birth, my lords. It may continue for several more hours, and we may yet lose them both.”

Once his message had been acknowledged, the attendant returned to the Lady’s side. Prince Iroh took a moment to put his young son to bed, but returned shortly afterward. “I promised I would get him the moment Ursa would accept visitors.” Iroh admitted. “I greatly suspect I shall find him praying in the garden, later.”

A snort from his brother, who shook the stiffness from his limbs with a scowl on his face. “I’ll be in my chambers. Send for me if they live.” Prince Ozai said tersely, before turning away from the screams of his wife. Fire Lord Azulon eyed both his sons, but said nothing when Ozai vanished from view.

Father and eldest son stood together in silence as time slipped away. Ursa grew quieter, though no jubilant midwife emerged to proclaim a successful birth. Not even one attendant brought them any news. The Fire Lord placed a hand on his heir’s shoulder. “You are excused for a moment or two. I shall stand the watch for our Ursa.”

Bowing, Prince Iroh retreated to his own quarters. Tucked away in the garden between his and his son’s chambers was a shrine. Prince Lu Ten was already kneeling there, incense lit in the dish, murmured prayers offered to Agni. Joining his only son, Prince Iroh offered prayers to Agni as well, despite knowing that the great spirit was blind to their plight.

And, because he was a desperate man afraid for his sister-in-law, he prayed to the other great spirits. Surely one would have pity on his brother’s wife and child, and spare them. He burned a written prayer for Agni, because He was fire and life and the spirit most revered by the Fire Nation. For the others he had only quiet words and desperation. His brother’s child was yet unborn, free from the taint that seemed to cling to Sozin’s line. One of the great spirits could choose to be merciful.

Guanyin and her deputies, Oma and Shu, were well known for their compassion. Prince Iroh believed that of any who might choose to act, and act in favor of his unborn brother’s child, it was them. Tui had darkened his face to the child, and La was unlikely to act alone. None alive remembered who Air had worshipped, but it was highly unlikely that particular spirit would intervene for an infant prince of Fire.

He wouldn’t doom an innocent life to pay for a massacre that occurred long before it had even been conceived.

“Prince Iroh.” came the call, from a slightly charred, cross looking midwife standing at the entrance to his garden. “Lady Ursa has given birth to a son. Your Honored Father has decreed that they be left in solitude until the sun rises.” He nodded, and the woman disappeared back into the halls.

Implied was the hope that the pair would live to see the sun at all. His nephew and sister-in-law were of Fire, and if Agni managed to shine His light on them, their odds at surviving would increase. Prince Lu Ten looked to him, young and tired and concerned. “A vigil will not hurt their chances, but I shall keep the watch for the both of us. You need your sleep, my son.”

Lu Ten could recognize a dismissal when he heard one, and stiffly regained his footing. His father’s gentle order was not a suggestion, though once ensconced in the privacy of his bedchambers, the prince’s actions were his own business. So if he spent the night, whispering prayers to Agni into his pillow? The walls wouldn’t tell anyone.

When Prince Lu Ten finally dragged himself back into consciousness, drowsy words for a great spirit’s ear on his tongue, the sun was just above the horizon. Dawn singing in his blood, the young man vaulted from his bed and careened down the hallways. Dodging servants and guards was a little difficult, most of his energy was spent on speed instead of agility, but he did finally make it to his aunt’s quarters.

It was quiet. None of the disquieting screams, the vague smell of smoke wafting from the rooms into the halls was gone...Lu Ten was sure that his aunt was allowed visitors, but he suddenly didn’t want to enter alone. Torn between the desire to enter, and the apprehension that desired flight, the boy hovered outside the doors.

“Nephew.” Prince Ozai said, tall and resplendent, robes billowing behind him. Lu Ten was always a little jealous of how easily his uncle wore his nobility. The younger son of the Fire Lord moved with purpose. “I believe you’ve come to lay eyes on your cousin, yes?” At the boy’s exuberant nod, Ozai nodded. “Very well. I was told the sun’s first rays put a little more life in my son, and he is expected to live. We shall go greet him.”

Lady Ursa lay limp and quiet, completely exhausted, her eyes lidded against the sun’s glare. The tiny baby lay swaddled in her arms, and mewled quietly. According to the midwife’s whispered words to Prince Ozai, this was a great improvement from his silent, still form of before, blue and not breathing.

Leaning around his uncle, Lu Ten said loudly, “He’s very tiny, Aunt.” A small smile ticked a corner of her mouth upwards, and the child squeaked weakly when Ursa shifted to see her husband and nephew better. “What are you going to call him?”

Prince Ozai stared down at the squeaking child, impassive. His son had dragon’s eyes, even at this young an age. Pure gold, normally a sign of strength, vitality...of luck. “He was lucky to have made it to sunrise.” He said eventually. He’d had an idea to name his child after his own father, but he would not waste that name on weak progeny.

“I was thinking Zuko.” the Lady Ursa said, and she smiled so gently at the child in her arms, it was clear which meaning she meant for him. Ozai considered it, and nodded. “He was strong enough to live to see the sun, husband. He will be strong enough to grow up.” When Aunt Ursa began making komodo-calf eyes at Uncle, Lu Ten said swift goodbyes to his cousin.

At a private dinner with his father, Lu Ten waved his chopsticks around emphatically, “He was really tiny, Father. Are babies really that tiny, all of the time?” Prince Iroh smiled, glad his son had gone to see little Zuko. While mother and son weren’t quite out of the proverbial blasting jelly zone, there was hope.

Perhaps their prayers had held true. Zuko might yet have the chance to become healthy son of Fire, strong of bending and blessed by Agni himself. With both his parents strong firebenders, it was likely the youngest prince would develop a strong ability as well. Or one could hope, or pray.

Prince Iroh returned to his garden shrine, lit the incense, and knelt. Even with Zuko’s uncertain fate, most were highly optimistic. Agni had shone on them, the pair had lived through a moonless night. Thanks needed to be given. And maybe the shrine was greener in the twilight, and maybe it was simply shadows. He made sure to honor Guanyin especially, just in case. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm rewriting this because the idea still won't leave me alone, and it needs to be done. Some world-building is getting re-done, since I'm not sure how fond I am of what LoK did, and a bit of it is inspired by Vathara's Embers. 
> 
> But mostly I wanted to expand on the ideas I had barely penned down in that drabble-fic, nearly a year ago.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drabble: 
> 
> He was two, playing games with Lu Ten out in the garden as they waited for his little brother or sister to be born. Young as Zuko was, afternoon naps had become things for babies, not young Fire princes.
> 
> As his nursemaid shooed him away from playing, his tantrum shook the earth enough to throw Lu Ten in the turtle-duck pond. Azula was born as Agni’s rays were at their strongest, as Zuko cracked earth with childish stomping.
> 
> Ozai was much displeased.
> 
> That night Ursa kissed her children on their heads, and left before gleaming armor could accuse of infidelity.

“Now pay attention, cousin.” Lu Ten said briskly, moving from form to form with excruciating slowness. The tingle in his muscles insisted that progress was being maintained, even if he was running the kata cold. Fire in front of a baby would be bad after all, so that meant cold katas. Zuko, about three months old and precocious enough to have made a habit of sticking rocks in his mouth, watched a glittering humming-hawk flit about the garden. “Zuko,” the older prince complained, drawing the baby’s attention back for a moment, “I am trying to teach you!”

The child only giggled from his seat on his current caretaker, one of Ursa’s older attendants. From what the servant woman had noticed, most of Prince Lu Ten’s antics amused the baby...when he was paying attention. “He’s still very little, my prince,” she said, bouncing him on her knee, like she’d done to her own children. “He isn’t very interested in anything that isn’t colorful, or quick to move.” 

As if to prove her point, when a bright gold and maroon humming-hawk moved to the other side of the garden Prince Zuko’s gaze followed. The servant woman laughed, and Zuko reached out pudgy hands for his cousin. Sighing, Lu Ten hoisted the baby onto one hip, almost overbalancing. “Heavy, for a baby.” Lu Ten said aloud, as the attendant smiled on fondly. 

Zuko, as he grew, shot up slowly. He loved the rock gardens in his mother’s private quarters, and could be found there quite often with either his nanny or the Princess Ursa. He was too young yet for classes and tutors, and as such his days were filled with sun and gardens and his mother’s soothing presence. Prince Ozai spoke of wanting another son, despite his wife’s still recovering constitution. Fire Lord Azulon sent Prince Iroh to the colonies, and the army forayed a little deeper into Earth Kingdom territory.

“Mama,” was the youngest member of the royal family’s first word. “Rock,” followed soon after, a smooth stone gripped in chubby fingers. Soon enough, Ursa’s firstborn was toddling around his mother’s quarters with dirt trailing in his wake. Zuko’s nursemaid tutted, but was ever there to wipe the smudges off his nose with a gentle smile. 

“There you are, my prince!” Nursemaid Aki said brightly, trailing behind the toddler. “Happy birthday, Zuko!” She whispered, slipping a polished pebble into the child’s hand. Over the course of the day, other servants wished the young prince good tidings on his birthday, and slipped more pebbles into his pockets. 

Delighted, Zuko showed off his treasures, each one precious to him. If they had names, well that was no one’s business but Zuko’s. And if they went farther than expected, when he tossed them, certainly no one noticed. If a particularly lovely, polished sandstone pebble vibrated in his pockets when he clumsily tried to emulate his cousin’s firebending forms, the prince didn’t tell a soul. 

For the summer solstice, Prince Zuko held his mother’s hand, and stood beside his father during the sage’s sermon. Prince Iroh returned home for the celebration, with little Earth Kingdom trinkets for the boys. Zuko tucked his tiny, wooden elephant-boar underneath his pillow, and he played with it often once the lanterns had been dimmed. 

A month after the following winter solstice, the Lady Ursa was determined to be again with child. Prince Ozai was rumored to have been seen at Agni’s Ever-Burning Flame, praying for another son. Prince Iroh, once again back on campaign in the Earth Kingdom, sent back joyous letters, praying for easy births and healthy children. Lu Ten, already so proud to have one cousin, tried to prepare Zuko to be an older brother. 

“No, but look, Zuzu. You will have to teach them the forms, once they get old enough. So, let us try again!” Patiently, the older prince coaxed the younger through a beginner’s form. Critically, Lu Ten nudged Zuko’s foot back into place. “Well, that  _ is _ better.

“Not great, but you are just starting. Don’t pout so, Zuzu, or Aunt Ursa will have my head for upsetting you. Come on, one more time.” As the year trudged on, Lu Ten and Zuko made a common sight, the elder running through higher level forms and simultaneously nudging his cousin’s footwork into perfection. 

Prince Lu Ten was starting to put on quite a bit of height, and the healers insisted he would grow to match his Uncle Ozai in stature. Zuko, also slightly taller, hadn’t yet outgrown his habit of picking up and keeping rocks. Many times a day he would be forced into new pants, so that he wouldn’t track dirt into the inner parts of the palace. 

“I hope your sibling is not as dirty as you are, Zuzu.” Lu Ten drawled, breaking for the toddler’s snack. Zuko only cocked his head to the side, a growing scowl on his face, showcasing a particularly dark smudge along the underside of his jaw. Lu Ten laughed gaily, and patted the toddler’s knee. While the younger prince tried to grapple with the nursemaid for his snack (“No! Prince Zuko, your hands are still dirty!”), Lu Ten stretched until he heard his spine pop.

Not a particularly princely behavior, but still. “Well, I am sure you will learn to keep clean a little better, when you are older.” Maybe. Lu Ten didn’t hold very high expectations on that. Zuko just enjoyed a fine layer of dirt too much. Watching Zuko pout until he gave up and went to wash up, Lu Ten thought about his father’s campaign. Prince Iroh had sent back letters detailing his recent victory in taking a key area around a prominent river. (Although the river ended in the Great Foggy Swamp, an unfathomably large maze of sucking mud and trees populated by such queer people, it was beyond useful for ships carrying supplies and troops.)

Spring came like a gentle sunrise, easing the winter chill from flameless fingers and bones. Lu Ten greeted his fifteenth birthday, and spent the day basking in his family’s love. The Lady Ursa presented him with a book of dragons and pirates and adventures, perfect for a young prince. Prince Ozai even had a word and a touch on the shoulder for him, but disappeared shortly after to attend his own duties.

His father sent his regards from campaigning in the Earth Kingdom, insisting he would be home in a week to celebrate. Zuko had graciously gifted him a precious obsidian pebble, small and smooth enough to fit perfectly inside his fist. (He returned the favor by reading aloud from his new book. Zuko’s eyes were wide when the dragons are mentioned, but he loved the swashbuckling parts best. Lu Ten liked the heroic soldier most, who fought the pirates and defeated the dragon and went home to his parents with honor riding at his shoulder.)

Zuko’s second birthday passed as the Lady Ursa grew big with child. He clutched his mother’s hand, rocks shifting in his pockets, and stumbled after her as she went about her duties. Fire Lord Azulon watched them with lidded eyes, content with his growing family and mind ever whirring. Lu Ten dutifully and excitedly retold every new detail about the Ursa’s second pregnancy in each letter to his father, even to the point where Iroh sent back a reply teasing his son for picking up midwifery.

Lu Ten didn’t stop soaking up the details or inquiring politely and learning more, but he did tone down the sheer detail in each of his new missives.

Summer came slowly, in ever increasing temperatures and more experienced fire-watches being set. The first day to spike into “sweltering” saw three fires in the plains outside Shu Jing. The Home Guard mustered, prepared to send benders to contain and direct the flames, should the domain’s own fire-watch be overwhelmed.

Prince Zuko, now quick enough on his yet-pudgy toddler feet to flee and hide from his minders, found delight in the little turtle-duck pond deep in the closed quarters of his late-grandmother, Fire Lady Ilah. When the chirping creatures deserted the waters for the foliage hiding their nests, Zuko threw his less-precious rocks into the waters, staring intently at the ripples, and giggling when the water lapped against his toes.

And sometimes, in the privacy of the deserted rooms, he pretended he was Proud and Fierce Fire Navy Marines, fighting off Dragons and Earthbenders and Waterbenders. Or that he was Lord Mifune, destroying ogres from the afterlife to protect his loved one. (And one super fun afternoon, he pelted the walls with rocks, some hitting harder than they ought, as he pretended to be an earthbender.)

And sometimes, in the privacy of the deserted rooms, he stumbled through the kata Lu Ten had shown him, frowning at the vibrating sandstone pebble in his pocket all the while. It wasn’t...it wasn’t supposed to be like that, he was sure. There was something...off about that.

 

* * *

 

His mother bent fire, in a way that was soft and flowing, like a deceptively deadly dance. (Lu Ten always said watching the Lady Ursa bend her element was like watching a master swordsmith work. Every move precise and perfected.) His father used his flames like a soldier might use a spear, each thrust of flame aggressive and powerful. 

Lu Ten bent like Iroh, not-quite the searing explosion customary of the line of Sozin but neither the soft lure of the Lady Ursa’s flame. And while the young prince wasn’t normally inclined to practicing without his cousin, or particularly diligent without said cousin’s gentle chiding and helpful nudges (training with Lu Ten was a delightful game, that he knew), Prince Zuko watched the displays of bending prowess with the delight and awe of one without draw.

Without the call of flame in the blood to echo in the flame without. 

Even at such a young age, there should be a flicker of the fire in him. Ursa loved her first child too much to notice. Lu Ten was too young to know what to look for. Iroh and Ozai both spent too little time with the boy to be sure. 

But Azulon, Fire Lord Azulon, nearing his middle eighties and the veteran of over seventy years of bending, could sense that his youngest grandchild was utterly powerless. Not-an-heir. No true child of the line of Sozin.

He would, however, give his younger son’s wife time to grow attached to the life inside her first. Then they would adopt out the fire-less child, to a family of prestige. Ukano, son of one of Azulon’s more distinguished generals, had recently married. His new wife was said to be with child as well, although not as far along as Ursa.

That would be a suitable family, Azulon thought. Keep Zuko close, but far enough from the throne and the benders who might lose their tempers around him. Perhaps a friend to whatever new child Ursa would bear Ozai. Webs of loyalty built of blood and bone and the more sentimental emotions. It would do. Azulon would make it work. Build a stronger Fire Nation, more loyal, more determined. And then bring civilization to the Water Tribes, ruin their benders, impose a Will of Fire that would make their people irrevocably Agni’s.

It would do.

 

* * *

 

Ursa’s water broke at late breakfast, midmorning. The heat of the day was already enough that even in the shade, sweat beaded on skin and dripped achingly slow off the bridge of Ozai’s nose. “It’s time.” He said importantly, waving away the meal. There was no time. His new son was to be born, at high noon this time.

No unlucky midnight births. No portents of powerlessness. No squeaking, snivelling courtiers whispering their doubts, their maledictions, their careless judgements of his line, of Ozai’s seed into the air. No.

This time the whispers were of lucky noontide children. Of Agni’s shining light, blessing this child, this new  _ prince _ .  For a prince Ozai was sure it would be. Snapping at the attending lady who’d been seated behind his wife, he gestures sharply at the screaming, unhappy toddler in the awkward hold of Ozai’s own manservant. “Take care of him,” He says, words a little harsher than intended. Sweet Agni, but did the spirits have to give something so small so much breath?

Not watching his son be swept into a nearby garden by the unfamiliar handmaiden, Ozai turned to follow after his wife. He would spend a few hours outside the birthing chambers, and he would greet his new son with Agni looking on. His child, the one worthy of bearing his grandfather’s name. 

_ Azulon the Second _ , Ozai thinks to himself, trying it out. Perfect. 

 

* * *

 

Breakfast ended early, Lu Ten notices, watching one of Ursa’s Lady’s try (and fail) to corral his unhappy cousin. “Lady Chocho,” Lu Ten greets, moving seamlessly into a cold kata from the form he was running. No fire around babies, he reminds himself. Not safe.

“My Prince!” Chocho wails, voice clearly stressed. “What should I do?” She flaps her hands unhappily before pointing at the child rolling around, screaming, in the dirt. “I can’t get him to stop!” She nearly wails. Her skirts have smudged and dirty handprints on them, clear indicators of Zuko’s filthy grip, and her carefully arranged hair has been pulled astray.

Lu Ten nearly laughs, because if she weren’t so clearly out of her depth, this might have been funny. As it is, his dear cousin (soon to be his  _ oldest _ cousin) has managed to terrorize the young woman into tears. Not good. “He probably just needs his nap, Lady.” Now, if Aki were here...what would she do.

“Come here, Zuzu. We can play a game!” Lu Ten cajoles, trying to imitate Zuko’s favorite nursemaid’s tone of voice. Except for the way his voice cracks high, the older prince thinks he nearly managed it perfectly. Zuko whines an unintelligible “No,” and rolls underneath a bush. “Zuzu!” Lu Ten sighs, planting flameless fists on his hips. Perhaps he should send Chocho for Aki after all.

No, he can do this. Zuzu is two, how hard can this be?

“Prince Zuko,” Lu Ten cajoles, getting down on his hands and knees to squint underneath the plant. “Get back out here, you scamp. You’re giving poor Lady Chocho a hard time.” He squealed unhappily, heels slapping the ground, dust rising up to tickle Lu Ten’s poor throat. 

Sneezing violently, Lu Ten scrambled backwards. Rubbing his nose, Lu Ten looked over at Lady Chocho. “I think perhaps Nursemaid Aki would be a good help. I’ll watch him, while you go fetch her.” Rocking back onto his heels and off his knees, Lu Ten breathed out sharply through his nose. Ugh. He could still taste dirt on his tongue.

Apparently his little cousin didn’t want to play any games. And he probably wouldn’t appreciate taking a nap (and Lu Ten was fairly certain that little Zuko desperately needed a nap). Lady Chocho couldn’t come soon enough with Nursemaid Aki.

“Zuko,” the older prince tries again, “Don’t you want to play a game?” The unrelenting unhappy screams were a clear answer to the negative, and Lu Ten tugs frustratedly at his earlobe. After nearly ten minutes of cajoling and rejected bribery, Aki rushes into the little garden area with Lady Chocho at her heels. 

Clucking sympathetically, Aki shooed prince Lu Ten back towards the fountain at the center of the garden. “You can continue with your practice, my prince. Lady Chocho and I can put young Prince Zuko to bed.” Reluctantly, Lu Ten retreated, leaving Zuko to the capable and professional toddler-wrangling hands of the nursemaid. 

Still, his concentration was split. Neither focused enough to move back into his more advanced forms (still cold, as Aki and Zuzu were unable to parry flame, and Chocho was supposedly mediocre with her bending at best), nor fully able to keep his focus on the quiet but firm voice Aki was using on his little cousin.

“No!!” Zuko cried, slamming his feet on the ground. Dust rose from the contact like dense fog off the caldera harbor. Aki wobbled, as though her balance was suddenly gone, and the lady Chocho stumbled over nothing and fell to her knees. “I don’t wanna!” He screamed, and pounded a fist on the ground. 

A fissure rent the earth, and Lu Ten lost footing sent him into the fountain. Sopping wet, he stared in confusion at Zuko. “Cousin?”

 

* * *

 

In a smoky room at the other side of the castle, as Zuko’s tantrum splits the earth underneath the feet of his caretakers and his cousin, a daughter is born to Ozai and Ursa. A servant, faintly singed by the princess during the duress of the birth, brightly addresses the prince and the Fire Lord. “A healthy daughter, my lords!” He says brightly, a smile prevalent on his face. “And the omens say she will be a gifted bender.”

Seven minutes after this delivery, after Azulon sent his son into the room to greet his second child and his tired wife, lady Chocho darts into the room looking disheveled and dusty. “Fire Lord Azulon, sir,” she pants, unhappily. “Prince Zuko...earthbender.” 

Alarmed, Azulon brushes past her. She follows behind in his wake, stammering an explanation to his back. When he arrives at the garden, Lu Ten is still soaking wet, and the nursemaid is covered in filth. Zuko is crying silently, no longer screaming, but the rend in the earth is unnatural seeming. His eldest grandson pales to see the Fire Lord, eyes darting immediately to Zuko.

So. It seems the attending lady’s words were not exaggerations. His youngest grandson is, apparently, an earthbender. This is, to say the least, displeasing. It would be one thing for a prince to be powerless. To have no bending. To be an earthbender! Clearly, something, somewhere, went terribly wrong.

He would need to think on this. Princess Ursa had not been unfaithful, his spies kept eyes on such things. No people of the Earth Kingdom ever came close to the Capital-on-the-Caldera, there was no explanation for the taint Zuko bore. 

Someone was going to burn for this, he just wasn’t sure who, or for what reason exactly. But his displeasure would not be sated until someone had burned to ash at his feet.

And someone would need to tell Ozai he no longer had a son. There could be no earthbenders in the royal family.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I see you favor the white lotus gambit, not many still cling to the old ways.” The graying man said gravely.
> 
> “Those who do will always find a friend.” The young man whispered hoarsely, fingering an extra lotus tile. “Father says he needs a home.”
> 
> “One will be found for him.”
> 
> Nodding, the young man in Fire marine armor shifted, toddler on his hip. Gently, he transferred the dozing child to the swordsman. Stiffly, he bowed to his elder, “May Agni light your path.”
> 
> The man returned the bow fluidly, “And His rays grant you peace.” And took his leave.

Zuko is spirited from the palace, from his weeping mother’s arms, at midnight. The choice of time is more to put the Lady Ursa on the wrong foot than anything else, all firebenders were weaker at night and Azulon’s soldiers were afraid of what her reaction might be. The captain cradled the toddler carefully, keeping a wary eye on the princess.

“We’re sorry it had to turn out like this,” he said, voice clear behind the anonymizing faceplate. And he is. Captain Han has three children at home, the youngest only a few years older than the young prince. It was criminal, taking a child so young away from his mother, but with the rumors…

Princess Ursa had been violated by an Earthbender within the Capitol-on-the-Caldera, the Lady Ursa had hidden Earth Kingdom lineage (wasn’t the true daughter of any Fire Noble family!), had defiantly bore the child of a Earth Kingdom prisoner of war. Any number of rumors, all ending with the cold, poisonous truth. Prince Zuko, if he could even be called that now that the truth was known, was an earthbender.

Zuko did not belong in the palace.

Captain Han and his twenty supporting soldiers filed out, the young prince(?) screaming for his mother and beating his fists against Han’s chestplate while Ursa sobbed into her brother-in-law’s arms, leather armor straps creaking quietly. It broke his heart, to have to hold the screaming, wriggling toddler as he was taken from the only family he’d ever known. 

It broke General Cho’s heart not at all.

General Cho had the son of Ozai locked into an iron room, with a rough pallet in one corner for sleeping and nothing else. “We await further instructions,” Cho said dismissively to Han, and the muffled sobs of the former prince could still be faintly heard through the walls. “Fire Lord Azulon will tell us how we are to proceed.”

Stiffly, Han formed the flame with his hands and bowed, soldier to superior officer. The general waved a hand dismissively in return, dismissing Han from duty for the remainder of the night. He made his way out of the building, passing soldiers on night duty, passing exhausted aids holding paperwork in their arms and looking like the world had ended scurrying towards meeting rooms, with his heart sinking in his chest.

Once he was outside, and the night breeze blew small strands of hair into his face, Han looked back. For once, the familiar outlines of the military’s headquarters looked oppressive and dark. What had once been impressive, soaring architecture now looked more like a fancy prison to Captain Han. He’d been a soldier for seventeen years, nearly at the age where he could retire out with honors, and a father for thirteen. 

He found that the pride he held in his job, a captain of the Home Guard tasked and trusted with the safety of the Capital-on-the-Caldera, was cold and tasted like ashes when he thought of the former prince. A decision made, Han turned sharply on his heel and strode home. He had letters to write, and things to find out, and...potentially...treason to commit. Agni save his family, should it come to that.

* * *

 

Prince Lu Ten woke up in the morning, hair askew and the dawn singing in his blood, to the face of his father looming over him. “Father?” he asked, wide awake and the first sense of something amiss pulling his mouth into a frown. Pushing himself up and the blankets away, Lu Ten scanned his father to be sure there was nothing wrong with him. “What is it?” The solemn look on Prince Iroh’s face was..not heartening.

Exhaling, Iroh closed his eyes and pulled Lu Ten into a hug. Drew him close and held his only son tight. Oh, Agni had been good to him, when He had given Iroh his son. Resting his chin atop Lu Ten’s bedhead, Iroh murmured, “Zuko is gone. They took him during the night.”

Pulling away, unease turned into dread, Lu Ten said “ _ They _ ? What do you mean, gone?” Iroh only looked excruciatingly sad. “Father, what  _ happened _ ? Where is Zuzu now? Is Azula okay?” Did the people who took Zuko hurt Aunt Ursa? What in Agni’s name had happened to his family while he was sleeping? What had he  _ missed _ ?

“Soldiers,” Iroh said, “Soldiers took him at midnight, from Ursa’s rooms.” A pause, and Lu Ten knew there had to be more to it, if the palace hadn’t been burned down around them all. Aunt Ursa wouldn’t have let them take Zuko without a fight, not without something else on the line. “My father commanded it.” If Iroh felt as shaken as Lu Ten did, it didn’t show on his face.

“Grandfather did?”

“There cannot be an earthbender in the royal family, Prince Lu Ten.”

That is both less and more of an answer than he wanted, Lu Ten thinks, sitting quietly at breakfast with his family a short time later. The whole family, barring Ursa and Azula, given that no one seems willing to even acknowledge that anyone else is even missing. Azulon sits slightly elevated from the rest of the family, with Iroh a distance from his right hand, and Lu Ten tries not to read into the space between the family and the Fire Lord.

He is not very successful.

Prince Iroh makes small talk with Prince Ozai, of the new daughter and the war effort and the latest faux pas made at court, and no one mentions that Zuko isn’t there, that Zuko is gone, that Zuko was unceremoniously removed from their family when Agni had no power because of the orders of a man who should have - at least Lu Ten thinks that he should have - loved them without limits.

Breakfast takes too long to end, and when it does Lu Ten rushes from the room and out into the gardens. He stands underneath the roof overhang, by the door, and watches as staff works around the split in the earth.They’re filling it in, leveling it out, trying to coax ground cover back into place and exchanging rumors aloud of what had happened.

Bit by bit, Lu Ten watches the proof of Zuko’s bending disappear beneath shovels and careful application of brand new plants. The gardeners noticed he was there about the same time as they smoothed over the last of the dirt. 

“Ah, Prince Lu Ten!” Sou called, one of Lu Ten’s favorite gardeners in the past. But right now, the prince hated him more than anything. That was his cousin’s existence being smoothed away, out of sight. Out of mind, wiped away as though it had never existed. As though Zuko no longer mattered!

He turned on his heel and fled blindly until he stood outside Ursa’s rooms, heart rate elevated and breaths coming fast. Waiting until his heart had calmed and his breaths came slower took forever, but after that terrible wait he rapped his knuckles on the wall. “Aunt Ursa?”

Without waiting for an answer, he moved through the reception room and strode up to the door separating Ursa’s public quarters from her private room. “Aunt Ursa?” He asked again, feeling young and sad and angry. He felt...betrayed, because if this could happen to Zuko, who Iroh loved and who Azulon seemed fond of, could this also happen to him? Or worse, Azula? Who had only greeted the sun at dawn once, and could yet be anything in the world?

“Come in,” Ursa answered, sounding exhausted. And Lu Ten entered and slid the door shut behind him and looked at his youngest cousin for the second time. She was still underwhelming, after the impression that Zuko had made in his short two years, tiny and wrinkled and sleeping. He’d read up a lot on babies, when he’d had the chance, and Azula seemed to be exactly what she ought to be.

Tiny, young, and dependant.

And Ursa looked wrecked, expression blank, hands empty. Still in bed even though the sun had nearly reached midmorning. There are shadows under her eyes that weren’t there yesterday, and Lu Ten reached out for her and she drew him into a hug almost without thinking. “Why?” he asked, and had to blink back sudden tears.

“I don’t know,” she replied, voice shaking quietly. Azula napped in her crib, and the sun continued its journey through the sky. Lu Ten wished for something he couldn’t name, fifteen and facing for the first time what much of the rest of the Fire Nation had already learned, after over fifty years at war, and wondered what might be done for Zuzu, for Aunt Ursa and Azula.

He couldn’t think of  _ anything _ .

That night, after lessons and dinner and showing Grandfather all the forms Lu Ten had mastered, the prince waited in his father’s chambers. He waited in the dark, sitting and waiting, and getting up every so often to peek down the hallways. He needed to ask his father some things. He needed...he wanted answers. 

Iroh found his son asleep on the bed when he returned to his chambers.

* * *

 

There were always rumors, in the Home Guard, that couldn’t quite be extinguished. Little things, tiny things. Where someone’s son had deserted to, heartsick of the war and with a mind wrung dry by the fighting. Where the best restaurant to eat at was, down by the docks of the Capital-on-the-Caldera’s port, when you were off duty and wished to avoid the judging eyes of superior officers. Which officers were safe to complain around, when it came to the length of the war and the length of deployments and the number of required tours before you could be allowed to go home. 

Little things, tiny things.

Some not so tiny things. 

Which islands of the Fire Nation were letting smugglers in and out of the blockades. Which nobles seemed a little less than completely supportive of the Fire Lord’s wars, which officers let insubordination slip, which of those would entertain a little unpatriotic displeasure. Which of  _ those _ might know how to play pai sho.

Captain Han knew that Captain Jin of the  _ Kashima _ was one such woman. She captained her crew with a lax fist, and everyone knew it. A bunch of supply-runners, her crew always petitioned for shore leave at the Capitol-on-the-Caldera and her track record of completing missions despite complications meant that her crew always got it. They’d managed to resupply troops behind enemy lines so many times, dodging all sorts of Earth Kingdom forces, that they were rumored to be blessed by Agni himself. 

It was also said that Captain Jin played an excellent game of pai sho. So excellent in fact, that she was boasted to have played against Crown Prince Iroh himself. (The tales varied, most insisted she lost every time, but closely, while a very few bragged she could beat even the prince.) Captain Han had been taking lessons from her for several years now, in between dockings. 

So, sitting before her at the game table for their usual meetup, Han set up the beginnings of the traditional moves. “I see you favor the white lotus gambit,” Jin said with a harsh laugh. She sobered, and didn’t move her own pieces to complete the formation and didn’t say the remaining words. They were alone in her quarters, and her crew was busy on-shore. “What’s wrong, Han.” 

Han swallowed, incredibly nervous. “Prince Zuko is an earthbender.” 

“Indeed he is,” came the voice from the door frame. Prince Iroh stepped into the room, son a quiet shadow, and pushed the door shut behind him. Quietly he sat down as well, and Iroh’s sober expression made Han sweat nervously. “My nephew cannot remain in the Fire Nation. Here is what we will do.”

* * *

 

The explosion, setting the military base alight with bright red fire and an orange glow, was the distraction. General Cho leapt from his desk, where he had been dozing over paperwork, and began organizing the response. He shoved himself into his uniform and armor, left the keys to the iron cells in the locked drawer, and went out to ascertain the damage even as another explosion shook the very ground.

Zuko, curled up where he was on his little pallet, woke with a start at the first  _ boom _ . He cried, maybe a little because he always did now (he wanted his mother), but mostly because the noise had been loud and he was frightened. He hiccuped, tears streaming down his face, and jumped when the second  _ boom _ shook his cell. Orange light painted stripes across the floor, and it flickered.

After a small eternity, the door opened, and Zuko wailed. “Lu!!!” Lu Ten rushed in, scooping the toddler up and into his arms, whispering soft, soothing things. “Lu,” Zuko cried, rubbing his face on his cousin’s shoulder. Tears and snot went into the dark cloth, but all Lu Ten did was direct a steely gaze outward and rub soothing circles into Zuko’s shoulder.

“Shh, Zuzu, it’s okay. I’m here now.” 

“Momma, I wan’ Momma!”

“She’s coming, Zuzu, I promise.” 

A sharp rap at the door had both boys flinching, redirecting their attention. Captain Jin’s Lieutenant Misaki’s soot-darkened face poked around the corner. Her proper Fire Navy Marine corps wear has been replaced by something less conspicuous. “C’mon, we’re wasting firelight. Gotta go now if we’re going to make it back to the docks, Your Princeyness.” Nodding, Lu Ten hustled, and they all disappeared into the flame-cast shadows. The cell itself left open and empty behind them.

Lady Ursa was waiting for them at the docks, looking pale and tired and empty. A spark of something came back to her, when Zuko saw her and squirmed until he was put down. He ran to her arms, a little unsteady, and cried. “My baby,” she whispered, pressing kisses to Zuko’s dirty forehead. “My Zuko, oh I missed you.” 

“Ursa,” Iroh says, pressing a hand to her shoulder. Zuko had been tired out, and was sleeping on his mother's shoulder, out like a light. Iroh is sympathetic, if he were her he’d never let his child go either, but, “the tide’s going to change.” She relinquishes her son to Lieutenant Misaki, who claps a hand to Lu Ten’s shoulder and smiles ferally at the combined royal family. “He needs a home,” he reminds. 

“One will be found for him,” Captain Jin insists, putting a hand on Misaki’s hip to shoo her back up into the ship. They’ll have the tiny prince shifted into someplace out of sight until they’re safe at sea, and can let him roam around. It will be tough on him, and they have a meagre amount of stone in the bilge to try to keep the kid from being stone-starved, but once they put in at a neutral port...well.

It’ll work out.

“May Agni light your path,” Lu Ten says solemnly, hand over his heart. It’s a formal farewell, but Ursa and Iroh both echo the movement.

“And His rays grant you peace.” Jin finishes. 

By dawn they’ve completed their checkpoints and the  _ Kashima _ has set sail.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko was five and had already moved three times in memory, fleeing the ever-encroaching Fire army. His father taught him bending basics, and promised to find a proper teacher once they reached Ba Sing Se.
> 
> He was six when they stopped in some odd-end town, presumably to earn just enough money to get them to a safe house, and eight when they left as the Rough Rhinos stampeded through and burned down their home.
> 
> He was eight and a half when they finally got to Ba Sing Se, and watched in horror as an Outer Wall segment came crumbling down.

The fuss that got kicked up when Zuko, earthbending child of the Lady Ursa, disappeared didn’t dissipate quickly. Each town around The Capitol-on-the-Caldera was searched, multiple times. The whole island was under close scrutiny. The harbors closed for two weeks, before the lack of trade coming in or out forced the hands of the guards. Trade and business did not, _would_ _not_ halt for long, _simply_ because the royal family had lost one of its bastard children. 

Ukano, son of one of Azulon’s generals, found himself gifted with a daughter by his wife. Mai was small, slightly younger than Ozai’s Azula, and would likely attend the Royal Fire Academy, when she was of age. Azula grew louder as the days passed, finding her lungs strengthened by the passage of the sun. A precocious baby who adored being held, especially by an adoring cousin. Lu Ten loved his littlest cousin, though he missed the slightly bigger one.

Lu Ten noticed that his aunt did not recover, as the days past them all by, only growing paler, as if the sun was not giving her strength. She seemed to be...fading. And his whole family was politely ignoring how little time she spent with Azula. Politely ignoring how little she ate, how much time she spent in bed, away from the rest of them and away from Agni’s healing rays. Uncle Ozai spent a little time with his daughter every day, but often left before even an hour was up, citing duties that needed his attention.

As a concerned cousin, Lu Ten could only spend what time  _ he _ could with Azula, and worry. Worry as no one else seemed to. And in between his lessons and his bending practices, he would sit with Azula and read to her, or try to play with her. She was too small, really, for playing. And with Aunt Ursa growing distant even from her newborn child, he feared this might be all Azula was getting, especially with Father halfway across the Earth Kingdom again.

And, as the two month mark rolled by and Azula grew bigger, Ursa grew more unhealthy looking and the family continued to ignore it. Ozai did not call for a doctor, and Azulon did not force the issue. The midwife Lu Ten had relied upon so much before Azula’s birth for knowledge, did not write back with good news after he’d sent off a letter.

She’d warned him, with a cramped script Lu Ten had trouble reading, to take care not to leave Azula with Ursa alone, should she continue to worsen.  _ An affliction of the spirit, sometimes takes hold of the mothers, after birth _ . She’d written, that if Ursa started seeing spirits of the world, or showed other, alarming symptoms, then she and Azula were to be separated and neither mother nor child was to be left alone. 

_ Pray for your aunt, young prince _ , the midwife had written, on the back of aged paper filled with what tips and tricks she could think of to help the Lady Ursa.  _ Perhaps Agni will be her only hope, should things not clear up soon. May the flames guide you and your honored family. _

Lu Ten hid his letter under his bed, and prayed nearly every day. Ursa still waned and worsened, until one desperate morning he stole Azula away and by dinner Ursa had disappeared. A preliminary search of the palace was made, but Ozai wanted it kept hushed up, so nothing further was investigated.

“She won’t shame me any further,” Ozai said quietly but firmly, to the Fire Lord, when he thought they were alone. Lu Ten had been just outside a doorway, within hearing range but not yet capable of being seen, and he froze. That was not a kind tone in his honored uncle’s voice. “It is better this way, Father. That she is just missing. She was ill.” Ozai says, with all the finality of a stone door slamming shut. Grandfather said nothing, and neither did Lu Ten, when they ate supper together as a family. Never mind that four of their number were missing, overseas, or simply with a nursemaid. Apparently the three of them, Ozai, Azulon, and Lu Ten, counted as a whole family.

“You’re old enough to start training with the military now, Lu Ten.” Azulon declared, having obviously tired of small talk. “Have you given any thought to which branch you would prefer?” Ozai had a position with the Home Guard, one he rarely utilized, and Lu Ten’s own father was a general in the army. Azulon himself, as a prince, had also been in the army. It was a family duty, a tradition by now, for the Fire Lord’s family to do their time in the service.

“I have, Grandfather,” Lu Ten answered. For a long while, he’d thought to follow Iroh into the army. Father and son, serving together. Surely that would be honorable, be glorious? But Lu Ten had seen a navy ship steal away with his cousin, and a marine had been one of the reasons Zuko’s escape had been successful at all. It was...hardly traditional, but.

“I would like to be a marine, in the navy.” Lu Ten said, knowing better than to admit he thought he might like to be a medic. His own father’s teasing incredulity of Lu Ten’s interest in medicine during Ursa’s pregnancy had been proof enough that it wasn’t princely enough a discipline for Grandfather to approve of it. “If it should please you, I would enlist there, after my sixteenth birthday.”

Azulon chuckled, a dry and hollow sound to Lu Ten’s ears. “Honor, duty, and the Fire Navy Marines, my grandchild?” Lu Ten nodded, and the old man’s good humor dried to a calculating stare. It always felt, that stare, as though the Fire Lord were weighing Lu Ten’s very worth as a person. “So you shall, after your birthday, enlist.” 

Then the good humor returned, and Azulon said, “I should hope you are not terribly seasick.”

“No, Grandfather.” Lu Ten said, and hoped that after his enlistment that he would still have time for Azula. Agni alone knew what loneliness she should face, with a father so busy and a mother missing. He would write her, even though she would still be too small to read the words, or to understand them aloud. Perhaps just so she would know she was loved, and that he missed her, and so he wouldn’t feel so alone? He could not imagine being anything other than lonely, set adrift on the waters for the first time without even a single member of his family alongside him.

Still, there was almost five months until Lu Ten greeted his birthday, and all that time to see how fast Azula might learn to crawl. He’d at least learned, from Zuko, that he couldn’t expect a baby to just know things. And maybe, when Azula was older, Lu Ten would tell her about her older brother, and how much he was sure the missing prince would have loved her. 

Just as Lu Ten loved her.

Two weeks after leaving the Capitol-on-the-Caldera, the  _ Kashima _ docked at a Fire Colony port. Cargo was offloaded, crewmen eager for a hot meal not cooked over a shipboard flame flooded the local eateries, and Captain Jin stayed aboard in her office with her paperwork. Her paperwork, and the toddler chewing on a hard biscuit with single minded determinedness. 

The young prince, if she could still consider him that, had taken passing well to sea life, but was understandably attached to the sandstone pieces he’d stuffed in his pockets. Even without the customary seasickness she’d expected, the lack of earthen grounding was taking its toll. An almost paltry amount of stressed outbursts, a possibly alarming amount of sleeping - though perhaps that was simply a side effect of being smaller than she thought possible, the prince was slight! - and a lack of appetite. 

Jin, admittedly, did not know much about children.

Lieutenant Misaki had taken it upon herself to crankily go ashore, looking for the appropriate contact. Supposedly someone who could take the child in. It was very likely Zuko would not stay in the colonies. Too big of a chance he’d grow up looking like his father, Prince Ozai. True gold eyes were rare enough it might be possible to put together the clues. Especially with the earthbending itself, as a telling addition.

But after they handed the boy off, that would no longer be her concern, thank Agni’s Ever-Burning Flame. 

Dusk had settled, and Jin had finished the forms that desperately needed her attention and had even started and then filed a number of additional papers before Misaki returned with a doughy civilian in tow. When the captain exited her quarters, leaving Zuko to sleep some more under her desk, she had the opportunity to examine their White Lotus contact. Green eyes, stocky earth kingdom build, but if that jawline wasn’t Fire Nation through and through Jin would eat her most disgusting pair of boots. 

With a respectful bow, Jin straightened up and waited for her guest to make the first move. Lieutenant Misaki let her eyes fall half shut, and didn’t bother to mask a yawn, flashing teeth in the dying light. To the pudgy Earth-ish man’s credit, he didn’t even flinch. A good sign for dealing with hot tempered spitfires and children everywhere, she thought.

The transfer goes smoothly, except when an alarmed Zuko sinks his baby teeth into his new keeper’s hand. He laughs it off, “They’re always fussy, the first few months.” Ignoring the red indentions on his hand, he shifts his hold so that the former prince lays better hidden beneath the loose folds of the man’s outer robe. “Thank you very much, Captain, Lieutenant.”

“Min.” The captain acknowledged. And she watched him go, as Misaki became the shadow behind her shoulder. “Is he trustworthy, Misaki?” White Lotus, sure. Misaki wouldn’t have brought him here if he weren’t their contact. But. But, but, but. They’d just handed over royal blood, to someone neither of them knew. The only thing they could’ve done, what with the earthbending, and the stealing him from prison, thing.

“He has other children.” Misaki answers, tone light. “They seemed happy, healthy. Earthbenders, a waterbender. He’s good for it.”  _ Mixed heritages _ , Jin thinks with a shudder. She’s glad she won’t have children, that she’s a solid firebender with firebending parents. Just look at how the Prince’s family had reacted to a bit of earthbending! She hopes their parents wanted those kids, until the law came down on them. 

She doesn’t want to think of the alternatives. 

“Right, well. I have more paperwork, Misaki. You’re welcome to go find dinner with the crew.”

“No, Captain. I’m good right here.” 

Things were looking up! Well, in that case, she’d dig out some shipboard wines, for Agni’s ceremonies at sea. They’d restock before they left port. Probably. Agni wouldn’t begrudge her a date with her wife, not after seeing Zuko safely away.

It’s the last time they see the prince. 

Zuko, for his part, dies that night. Lee, a war-child, travels with his “maternal” Uncle Min away from his dead mother and Fire Nation father. Lee has brothers, where Zuko had a sister. Lanky Yijun, who took after a waterbending, “paternal” great-grandfather from back before the beginning of the Fire Nation’s war, was twelve and responsible. Untrained, but a natural healer. Helped his “paternal” uncle with the younger ones. 

Like Lee, and Lim, who was Min’s sole earthbending, natural son. And Heng, a war orphan Min had picked up on his travels away from the perils of the Fire Nation colonies. Heng was a non-bender, but probably even more of a spitfire than the other boys. Compensation, maybe, for being unable to take part in the training sessions and relegated to following Yijun around while the other two boys practiced forms. 

By the time he was three, Lee had moved once already from the village he’d come to know to another one further inland. The Fire Nation marched steadily forward, and what had once been Earth Kingdom was now again Fire Occupied. Min moved his family further inland. This didn’t last long, and on his fourth birthday, Lee was again on the move. The Fire Nation was consuming Earth Kingdom land like a slow-moving grass fire, ebbing around firmer pockets of resistance and circling around.

Consuming, taking, holding. Outposts left behind, sharp hazel eyes keeping eyes out for traitors and rebels and spies. Min and his boys kept moving. Only months after settling, a raid set their house and town aflame, and all five of them ran. Yijun fourteen and beginning to sprout upward, grabbing Lee and Lim, while Min held Heng’s hand and they ran. For the hills, for the safety of earthbent shelters and steep inclines that Fire soldiers couldn’t climb.

Lee was four. Lim five, and Heng a rowdy seven. Yijun detangled Heng’s hair while Min worked on Lee and Lim. “We’ll head for Ba Sing Se.” Min said, looking much less doughy than he had when he’d acquired Lee. “We’ll be able to settle down, there. Find you a healer to learn from, Yijun. Get Heng a proper apprenticeship.” Let the other two grow up. Away from the Fire Nation and eyes that might catch hint of their Fire ancestry. 

Lee and Lim had been in the middle of practicing, throwing rocks at each other with no true force, playing what was essentially catch, when Yijun scooped Lee up, and Heng behind him grabbed Lim. Lee was five. Yijun, with eyes wide, breathing coming fast and water from the nearby well lapping over the sides in reaction to his distress. Min caught up to them, red in the face and carrying what was important from their home, and coughed out, “Keep going, the Navy is flowing up the river, they’re taking the town.” 

They ran for months, never stopping except to sleep, for Min to pay for more food for the road. They practiced as they could, and Lee and Lim threw tantrums when they were tired, when they were hungry. When Lee was angry, rocks shuddered and shattered like cinders popping. Heng eyed him warily, and tugged Yijun’s sleeve, after the little ones had fallen asleep on a dozing Min.

“That temper is all Fire Nation.” Heng spat, fear making him angry and defensive. “He’s gonna get us all killed, Yijun.” He was whispering, because speaking too loud would wake the tiny terrors, and their fire guttered low, a lack of wood keeping it from growing bright enough to comfort. “I don’t want to die, Yijun…”

“We won’t die.” Yijun said fiercely, moving water clumsily within the waterskin for comfort, kneading it with both his hands and his clumsy bending. He would readily admit that Lee’s temper unnerved him sometimes, seeing his own true-father’s fiery wrath in the snarl of an upset child. Unfair maybe, but he still remembered his waterbending answering his distress, slapping his firebender of a father in the face before almost magically soothing the burns on Yijun’s arms and face. Healing for the first time, and then his mother spiriting him away in the night. 

“We won’t.” Yijun said again. “We’re refugees from the former Earth Kingdom lands, we don’t have to look purely Earth.” Being war-children was no crime, though that wasn’t what they were. That wasn’t what any of them were. Even “Uncle” Min, that wasn’t what he was either. All of them had Fire parents, except Lim, whose mother had been like Min. 

“We’ll make it to Ba Sing Se, and there’ll be so many people there, we’ll fit right in.” Heng didn’t look convinced.  _ Spirits _ , but Yijun himself wasn’t exactly convinced, either. Still, they both quieted, settled, and in the morning things didn’t look so dire. In the morning the sun was shining, and the dust wasn’t so bad, and the birds sang, and Lee and Lim were actually pretty well behaved.

They grew closer to the ferry crossing to Ba Sing Se every day. “Will we see the wall today, Un’le?” Lee asked, playing fast and loose with his table manners and speaking around the bread in his mouth. Lim screamed the question a second later, spraying crumbs all over Heng, who’d been sitting between Min and the little boys. “Today?! Today?!”

Together they yelled, slapping open hands on their legs to make pounding noises, “Today?! Today?!”

“Not today,” Min would reply, already tired of this game. They’d only kept this up for two days, and Heng was ready to rip his hair out. This would repeat every time they paused for a break, and at night they’d ask about the next day. “Not tomorrow. Maybe the end of the week.” 

And sure enough, four days later saw the first hint of Ba Sing Se’s outer wall, a dark blue smudge on the horizon. Lim moaned and groaned about it, completely unimpressed. “That’s nothing.” He says, disinterested now in the game Lee still played. 

“Today?” he’d ask in the mornings, meaning would today be the day the outer wall wasn’t just a smudge on the horizon. 

“No.” Min would answer.

Ba Sing Se’s outer wall was still a blue smudge on the horizon when the money ran out and Min and his boys settled into a newer, different town like puzzle pieces. Lee was five, Lim six, and Heng and Yijun were a respective nine and nearly fifteen. Yijun, nearly old enough to catch interest by the army, ate up every lesson he could learn at the hands of the local herb-healer, though he still spoke dreamily of rumored waterbending healers in Ba Sing Se. 

Yijun was eighteen, a new and raw recruit with the local garrison, still learning his trade as a field healer when Fire raiders came. They fired the town as they went, thatch roofing and all the greenery in the town set deliberately aflame by firebenders on komodo-rhino mounts. A scout spotted the flames first, the garrison was an hour’s walk outside the town’s limits, and Yijun’s face was chalky with fear for his family. 

His commander, marshalling his troops, did not give Yijun leave to find them. He snuck away behind the lines of chaos, ditched his identifying standard issue armor, and let the rest of the guard try to tackle the Rough Rhinos. He smelled ash and char on his clothing for two days, but his family got out safe. 

They made for Ba Sing Se once more. 

Lee was eight, Lim was nine. Heng was a weedy, growing boy of eleven, though he’d be twelve by the next season. They made it to the plains outside the wall, where people fleeing for Ba Sing Se could be directed to the ferry, when they saw the wall come crumbling down. One section only, but the fear it gave Yijun, the shock it gave Min. They were Fire, they were Earth (or at least, for Yijun and Lee, pretending to be Earth), and they had never even imagined this was a possibility. The crowd around them screams, enough people not frozen with horror to make it a roar.

Some turn tail and run. Some flee forward, thinking that if the outside of Ba Sing Se is not safe, surely the inside will be safer. Min and his small family are speechless with horror, frozen with despair, Lee and Lim’s eyes round and wide with surprise. Even they know this is wrong, is bad. 

And then, they flee back the way they came.


End file.
